One Damn Thing After Another

The Sentences

 

I think we've had enough of this malarkey.

Malarkey.

I'll tell you again. I wasn't anywhere near the place. I didn't even know the guy.

The jury is going to come down on you hard.

Hard.

How could they. I've got an air-tight alibi. I was playing guitar at a stadium rock show on the other side of the world.

You may think that'll get you out of this, but it won't.

It won't.

Haven't I offered you enough money. Do you want more money. Is that what you want.

It's not the money, it's the principle of the thing that counts.

Counts.

Fine. So charge me. Bring me to trial. A jury trial. Let's see what the jury says.

Whatever you say goes.

Goes.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I am innocent. I didn't know the victim, and I have twenty thousand witnesses as my alibi.

Surely there's been an error.

An error.

So set me free from this torment. I'm down on my knees.

He's down on his knees.

On his knees.

What is your verdict.

We sentence you to live. For several more days or even years.

Even years.

God damn you you fates.

 

*

 

Burning Bridges Give You So Much More

 

-I had a terrible incident the other day.

-What did you do?

-Nothing. It's what happened to me, on a streetcar.

-Terrible incidents happen on streetcars.

-This one was very terrible. I sat down, and across from me was someone I thought I almost recognized. Someone from my past.

-Who was it?

-I'm not sure it was her.

-Fine. Who do you think you almost recognized?

-You don't know her. Someone I treated a little badly.

-Oh.

-Very badly.

-Oh.

-It was because she treated me badly.

-So, it was revenge.

-Almost twenty years ago. However, I treated her more badly than she treated me badly.

-You went overboard.

-I confessed to her I was going to go see a shrink.

-That was true?

-What do you think? Anyway, she thought it was funny.

-That can happen.

-I was having a nervous breakdown, maybe.

-What was your revenge?

-I shunned her.

-Ooh, that's bad.

-Wouldn't talk to her at all. I was wounded.

-Still, it was an awful thing to do.

-I know.

-Anyway, did you talk to her on the streetcar?

-She got off at the next stop.

-It was her.

-Damn!

 

*

 

On the Good Ship

 

He wanted a book, but we were mid-Atlantic.

He wanted five aces in every poker deck.

He wanted a place to piss, but all occupied.

What's to be done when you're on a good ship?

 

The front of the boat went on forever

And no-one had ever seen it in reality;

There were paintings and schemas of it but

What's to be done when you're on the good ship?

 

His assistants scurried to and fro in search.

They thought they might be able to find it:

"Colonial Treaties and Documents" by Flo Fletcher,

But they were all stuck on such a good ship.

 

It's not as if they didn't know what was what.

The bells rang out when the ship sped or slowed.

There was plenty of crew who stood around waiting.

Such a good ship. Oh, such a good ship!

 

There's a boat to the stars, the prophets say so,

And perhaps they were on it: some said definitely no.

Things don't change much ever in the middle of water.

What's to be done when you're on such a ship?

 

Come lads, you've heard it before:

What's to be done on such a good ship?

 

*

 

I Can't Sing

 

If it weren't for the rocks in its bed, the stream would have no song.

Carl Perkins

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I'd rather get a hot dog or a doughnut than write a song.

John Prine

If my tongue were trained to measures, I would sing a stirring song.

Paul Tillich

Toil without song is like a weary journey without an end.

H. P. Lovecraft

In Hungary all native music, in its origin, is divided naturally into melody destined for song or melody for the dance.

Franz Liszt

When you write a song, a song has longevity.

Smokey Robinson

If you're writing anything decent, it's in you, it's your spirit coming out. If it's not an expression of how a person genuinely feels, then it's not a good song done with any conviction.

Alex Chilton

I didn't choose a word or anything. I just wrote the song until it stopped.

Marty Robbins

I'm not a blues singer, I'm a diva.

Nina Simone

Silence is more musical than any song.

Christina Rossetti

 

*

 

Oshawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Ste. Therese, Rosseau, Bakersfield, Los Angeles, Bala, Memphis, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Vancouver, Victoria, Surrey, Glasgow, London, Croydon, Seattle, Portland, Oakland, San Francisco, Long Beach, Beaverton, Little Britain, Dublin, Chicago, 274 Arden Drive, 974 Dovercourt Road, 583 Logan Avenue, New Orleans, Bute, Guelph, Paris (Ontario), Peterborough, Whitby, St. George, Bracebridge, Gravenhurst, Kingston, Wolfe Island, Mindemoya, Gore Bay, Lion's Head, Detroit, Buffalo, Olean, Allegany, the east end, the west end, the north end, the south end, Washington, Savannah, Jackson, Quebec City, Halifax, Sarasota, Long Beach, Las Vegas, San Diego, 206 Howard Park Avenue, 62 Havelock Street (since demolished), Judique, Judique North, Lawlor Avenue, Guelph, Kitchener, Hamilton, Bala Park Island, Port Hood, Pirate Harbour, Troy, Mabou, Wycocomaugh, Baddeck, Huntsville, North Bay, Moosonee, Moose Factory, Sault Ste. Marie, Seattle, Portland (Oregon), Memphis, Nashville, Boston, Medford, New York City, Greenwich, Cambridge, Sarnia, Swords, Bray, Canterbury, 34 Aldeney Road, London (Ontario), Cobourgh, Consecon, Brantford, Midland, Niagara Falls, New Orleans, Rochester, Lenox, Lake Placid, Mahone Bay, Charlottetown, Phoenix, Hudson Bay, Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, the Irish Sea, the Firth of Clyde, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Bay of Fundy, the Thames River, Earth, Moon, Sol, God bless you all.

 

*

 

Guiness Book of Records--Most Performances Missed

 

We were Halifax at the time, and Jan saw on the Internet that Ibsen's Peer Gynt was playing in Boston that night. "I think we should go."

Dan asked: "What time does it start?"

Jan looked at the screen. "In three hours."

"I guess we'd better hurry."

Dan, Jan, Nan and I got in the car and started up the highway north.

At Truro we stopped for a coffee break. Nan said: "We're cutting it really close, you know. We don't even have tickets yet."

"I can take care of that." On my phone I ordered up four tickets. "I couldn't get four tickets together. I got two and two."

We argued out who would sit with whom.

"Okay," said Jan. "How much time we got?"

Dan checked his phone. "We got an hour to get to Boston."

"We'll have to go fast. Why don't we get a cab? They know the routes better than we do."

"That's a good idea!" I said. "A cab will help us!"

Nine hours later, we were in Boston.

Nan said: "Well, we missed it."

Jan: "They're doing Aïda in Cairo."

"When?"

"Four hours."

"Let's get going!"

 

*

 

A winter evening, a dull television show showing,

On our TV and streamed from a server somewhere,

Idle thoughts filling our heads, disinterestedly,

And mine are mine and no-one else's, and hers

Can't be known by me. What happens in there?

All I have to go on are gestures, words, signs

And symbols of her rich inner life, translated

Into inadequate signals like UFO communications.

Each is already alone in heads, not even worth

A tree. It's a recipe for murder, I tells ya.

Why worry, why care? We're all such aliens,

To others but also a little bit to ourselves.

I sense a stir from her. Something is upsetting

Her now. She's blinking away tears, I dunno why,

And her face is scrunched up in something like

Pain. I say: "What's up? Is something wrong?"

I haven't the faintest idea what's in her head.

She says, slowly, painfully, "One day I'm going

To die." I say: "Yes, that's true. It's everything."

Then she says: "It means I won't be able to

See you ever again!" I understand what she means.

It's a bit miraculous I understand what she means.

I say: "It's all right." And the tv drones on.

 

*

 

Hands

 

When I was a child, in Kindergarten, I had a whole roomful of friends every day. We were all friends with one another, so I never had any problem finding someone who would hold my hand. Delightful.

Later, at university, the possibilities were somewhat lesser, but I am certain there were some twenty or so who would hold my hand if I allowed them to. Otherwise, I held, oh, a dozen hands in those years.

I started my career on a good note, for I was liked by almost everyone senior to me. I had hands to hold, and I held to them.

I rose rapidly, then started my own company. Though I shook more hands than I held, I knew those hands were there, allowing me, and wanting me.

I married soon after, and I wound up with fewer hands to hold, but I held them more intensely.

People I'd known died in the latter years, and I soon had only two or three hands to hold. The feeling was vastly more powerful, and I held.

And now I'm on a hospital bed, and alone. Who will hold my hand?

"I shall," said Death: "I'll hold your hand."

 

*

 

The Trout

 

How can I write a bit about a trout? he asked his soul. I've never seen one, except on a plate, with garnish. Are the river-fish or lake-fish or ocean-fish? Do they swim up rivers to spawn, like salmon famously do? That seems unlikely, since there'd be competition between the species. Again, I ask you, what do I know about trout? he asked his soul. They're fish of a medium size; I don't think they can become huge like salmon or tuna. I'm pretty set on thinking they're in lakes, nor rivers, not oceans. Oh, now I remember something: something about angling. Trout get angled, and angling is a way of fishing or it's a synonym of fishing. So maybe there is a connection with rivers after all. I'm thinking of an etching of an angler angling I saw once. But, again, what do I know about trout? he asked his soul. They're slippery. They have lungs. They can jump above water. I think they like eating insects. Maybe the have teeth. What do I know about any trout? I didn't think you knew anything about trout, his soul said. I was only trying to make you hurt.

 

*

 

The Lighter Side of the Darker Side

 

She was in the big green armchair, and she was dead. Neither of us knew, apparently, how it had come about, but there is was: the Fact. Her left arm was hanging off the armrest, and her left hand was sitting casually on her stomach. Somehow, she'd kicked off her right shoe. Her dress, dark green with small brass buttons down the middle, was like the drapery from sculpture somewhere. However, she wasn't a sculpture: rather, she was dead. I thought for a moment that a Kodak moment had appeared out of nowhere, but I thought better after a second.

We figured: What should we do? How should we react? Can this be made right? How to sort this? Can we turn back the clock? Should we open a window? Turn on a couple more lights? Get the car out of the garage? Call an ambulance? Call the police? Call my mother? Wait and see if a miracle occurs? Make an early breakfast and think about it all? Ponder mortality, perhaps? Count out blessings? Repeat phrases from soap operas or tragedies? And what are we going to do about the three bodies upstairs?

 

*

 

Our Tower-Stander

 

We had a Tower-stander in our village. Folks have told me he showed up, from a foreign land, when he was just a boy. For years he performed at festivals and parties, but he increasingly did it more and more often. At first, so it's been told to me, he'd stand comfortably on a biggish platform forty feet in the air. Over time, the tower got taller and smaller. He'd stand on these structures, many of his own design, for hours at a time.

The tower eventually shrank to just an inch square, and two hundred feet tall. But that wasn't enough: it became one-sixteenth square, and four hundred feet high. It seemed he could go no further. So, it was announced he would jump up and down on it.

I was there the day he tried to do it. Drumroll. He jumped up as high as he could, and fell to his death. Tragic!

We found out his name was actually Sslaga Sstomana. In his own language, a double ess was pronounced Szrch. We found out that in his country tower-standing was a common occurrence. So, our tower-stander wasn't unique at all; 'twas only unique to us.

 

*

 

Two Sides Each

 

The people in my village love tales, the more ridiculous the better, but they also love happy endings.

Says he: I was very young, you see. One day I purchased a double album, it was by the Steaming Watermellows, a live album if you're ever looking for it. I got the record home, and I discovered I had two copies of the 1st LP. I was very young then, but I had heard that anomalies in the productions made the records more valuable. So I didn't return it; I held onto it.

About five years later, I heard tell of a record auction, so I figured I'd get my Steaming Watermellows appraised. Nervously I went up to a vendor and showed him the record. He asked me what was so special. I said: It has the same record twice.

And the vendor laughed at me. "That is meaningless. It could be so easily fraudulent."

I was so embarrassed. I spotted a bench upon which to sit and weep. I noticed a girl with a copy of the selfsame live album, and she looked sad. I spoke to her. Her copy contained two 2nd LPs.

I married her.

 

*

 

Sea and Land

 

Arable land was the promise, and they came:

German soldiers hired to fight against America.

A couple years' service, and George III

Would give them great land around some place

Called Lac Toronto. (A few years earlier

The English had trounced the French, but the Anglos

Hadn't gotten around to renaming everything.)

 

Great-great-grandfather? More than that?

The German soldier was suddenly in the woods,

Tall trees everywhere, all waiting to be pulled.

Sure, he felt gypped, but he was so far from home

He had to bear the burden of a savage land.

He built a farm and a house on the arable land

And somehow he's one of my ancestors.

 

Meanwhile, in the British Isles, unknown people

Of Scotland and Ireland fought their battles

Against the sea. Some went sailing, some fishing.

Can't be traced much earlier than Liverpool, frankly.

(I don't have any information, so I'm probably

Getting a lot of details wrong.) Across the Irish Sea

Went these people of the seas, to Liverpool,

Where they worked with ships and boats and ferries.

 

And so, these great-great-great-great- and great-great-great-

And great-great-grandparents, were of sea and land

And I should change my name to Mud.

 

*

 

Today

 

A friend sent me a video of a woman singing 'Be My Baby'. It was a fine rendition, but I think my friend was more interested in her sensational body than her singing. Because I clearly thought the same.

Be My Baby. Wasn't that used in a David Lynch film?

(People not interested in the process of inquiry should go to the next webpage now.)

Yes, Inland Empire. During the credits. No, not at all. The whores dance to The Loco-Motion. {And, in the credits, it's Sinnerman by Nina Simone.}

(Please, go away, for the sake of your vitals.)

The Loco-Motion. Gerry Goffin and Carole King watched their babysitter, Eva, dancing some fun moves and clapping her hands. They composed a song, and Eva sang a demo. The demo was augmented by song overdubs, and released. Little Eva: "The Loco-Motion." Look it up.

(Go now.)

Then I remembered screwing around with a tape recorder and microphone when I was ten or eleven, with James Deakin. We played 'The Loco-Motion', and sang over the song. Maybe the cassette still exists somewhere.

(Go now.)

Which is Inland Empire. 'The Loco-Motion' gets played, on set, and the whores sing and clap along.

 

*

 

The End

 

A day came in our village during which my neighbour swore his house was getting smaller. "I'm bumping my head on my doortops." It sounded ludicrous--we were on the Village Green at the time--but later I checked for myself and I saw that, yes, my own house was getting smaller too.

In three weeks, we were stoop-shouldered due to how small our houses had become. "Maybe we're getting bigger," said a neighbour, but I explained the square cube rule, and that shut him up.

Cutting to the chase, after five months our homes were all about 1/6 scale. We were all sleeping outside of town by then, in tents. The village got smaller and smaller, and we had no explanation for it. No physics external to the village changed; only our village did so.

The village's shrinking accelerated. A little later it was the size of a garden plot. Then a dinner plate, then a tea saucer. One had to lie on the ground to see how perfect its proportions were.

For a while, you could see it with a magnifying glass ... and then, not at all.

We dispersed to other villages. Less weird villages.

 

*

 

The Child Asked

(a quatrain)

 

The child asked: "What is wisdom?" and I replied:

"What kind of a loaded goddam question is that, you little pest? I know why you think I should know: It's because you can see I'm old, or at least in the early stages of elderliness. And you've heard those tall tales that age brings wisdom, haven't you, haven't you, you little brat? You're trying to insult me. I see right through you. 'Since wisdom comes with age, you must be wise.' That's what I heard.

"I can't say I don't envy you, you little potentiality you. You'll eventually catch up with me--Dame Nature declares it to be so--but in the meantime you could do all the things I regret not doing. The paths I didn't take, the girls I didn't make. Thus, so, really, you asking me to give you wisdom, all my wisdom, all my Boddhisatva-ness, all my Sutras and apothegms, everything I know of life, love, music, art, literature: well, I can't be of use to you. Second-hand is second-hand. Your life's yours. Find your inner guide."

The child said: "I was only asking for the dictionary definition of the word."

 

*

 

Where We Are

 

We have a saying in the village and it goes like this. It's almost like the town motto, and we're probably going to put it on a stone tablet.

 

"We're seventy-five miles from Carpville, twenty-two miles from Smok, and eighteen miles away from Minnowton. There's only one place we can be, according to those co-ordinates, and that's where we'll always be."

 

I suppose it may be a little long-winded, but it's ours and there aren't any others. The masonry costs will be significant.

The atlas is correct when it says our anchor industry is the construction of luxury yachts. Frankly, we make little else aside from machines necessary to the construction of luxury yachts. There's a lot of special machines we have to use.

I run the porthole department. Sometimes I get teased since what I'm really making is a frame for nothingness, but I think of it esoterically. Naturally, I can't explain that to you. We cover them with chromium then a thin layer of plastic to keep them from getting scratched. A lot goes into the making of a luxury yacht.

Someone in the Mast Division is having a rough time, maritally-speaking, I've been told.

 

*

 

Heard 'Round the World

 

One day, one afternoon, one o'clock, a little boy, to get out of some wrong-doing, made up an outrageous lie. The boy's parents accepted this outrageous lie as fact. The lie, when believed, had the effect of turning the whole world upside down; when believed, all his human history and human knowledge became something else entirely: All that was known, all that ever had been known, now longer had any validity.

The parents told their friends on the left and the right, and it wasn't two weeks later that the town's alders and burghers convened a meeting to discuss the implications of the new knowledge, i.e. the lie. They decided they couldn't keep it to themselves, for that would be an act of cruelty to the world. Why should everyone else not know? Thus, a delegation left the town to have an audience with the King. The King listened, and replied that nothing could ever be the same again.

The lie spread rapidly from kingdom to kingdom, and all of knowledge began to alter, slowly, then rapidly. The world became a completely different world. It was spectacular.

And that boy, that little boy, was Galileo Galilei.

 

*

 

The Miracle of the Literate Automobile

 

I went out to my Honda Civic one morning, a morning after I had been driving along country roads in the rain. The car was covered with mud and dust, and I could see the car didn't like it one bit, for it had miraculously written WASH ME on its side.

I couldn't believe it. I've heard of talking cars, but a car that was literate enough to write a message in itself? WASH ME, it clearly wrote, and it probably meant it, too.

But was I going to wash it? Heavens no! A miracle had taken place, a goddam miracle, and it's very bad luck to destroy a sign of a Wonder of the World.

I drove that Honda Civic to the local mall and I stopped people and pointed out the miracle. They said: "Wow! That's amazing!" or: "Well, I'll be!" or: "That's one smart car you got there!" Everyone was as impressed as I was.

However, in all my excitement that day, I got really drunk and talkative at a local bar. At two a.m. I drove the car off a bridge and into a river. So much for miraculous events!

 

*

 

A Late Elegy

 

My mother told me: "You should write something about it." That was nearly forty years ago. It's about time.

I had a dream last night, and he was in it, or someone like him was in it. In either case, I fell into memory.

Yes, it was nearly forty years ago; more precisely, thirty-nine years and ten or so months ago.

I got a phone call one night. That's how I learned about it. Next morning, his father called. Car accident. New girlfriend. On the rural dirt roads. Rain.

He was a good friend of mine. He was of my 'smart set'. I remember mocking him when he was puking on railroad tracks. He threw rocks at me in return. That was about six months before his death.

Occasionally, I see pictures of his beautiful sister. Her life has gone on, and mine has gone on too.

Imagine: he would be my age. He would have had children. He could have been a grandfather by now. However: "There was an accident."

Hill Street Blues. Rock music. Mutual friends. Swimming pool. Mathematics with his father the mathematics teacher.

Definitely a better person that I'll ever be. "An accident."

 

*

 

Two Shut-ups

 

We were in Seattle one afternoon, near some famous building. A young guy came up to us with a red binder. In it were pictures of starving third-world people. Photographs and articles, laminated pages upon laminated pages of them.

"A small donation would go a long way," he said.

I suspected a scam was in progress. I let him talk, trying to know how to get out of it.

I said: "We're from Canada. If I donate to your Canadian branch, I could give so much more money, because of tax deductions."

That shut him up. We parted amicably. I had won.

 

-

 

It was probably in the fall of last year. I was on the front porch, vaping and reading, when a canvasser appeared. She said: "Hi! I'm with Greenpeace! We're going around your neighbourhood, warning about [insert Sign of Apocalypse here]. So, are you interested?"

I said: "No, not really. I'm just reading a book. And I'm vaping. It's a nice evening, anyway."

(She should have gone away at this point.)

She asked: "Don't you care about the environment?"

I pulled some vape before replying: "No, not really."

That shut her up. Speechlessly, she went away.

 

*

 

I knew her name back then. We never talked. She might have transferred into the school two months before, or nine months before.

I sat down in the giant cafeteria, with Jeff Hogsteen beside me. She was wearing a neck-brace. Jeff joked to her: "What's with the neck-brace? Doug been slappin' you around?"

And she broke down, and had to leave the cafeteria.

Me and Jeff shrugged at one another. We didn't know anything about the accident. We didn't know Doug was dying, at that very moment, at Oshawa General Hospital.

Later that year, in late August or early September, I went to James Deakin's family cottage. Many of us kids were there, and of age to get drunk, which is what we all did.

In the old cottage, I got into a dispute about the rules of a card game. I got so selfishly indignant I staggered to the new cottage. Along the way, I passed Geoff, who was punching the lights out of a spruce.

I was indifferent. I settled down into the red armchair to read some terror novel.

Behind me, in the kitchen, girls (maybe Laurie included) tended to Geoff's torn bloody knuckle-wounds. I'd become bitter.

 

*

 

Hysterical Banning!

 

Let's talk about book-banning. Not the bullshit Tennessee School Board stuff; I want to talk about Salman Rushdie.

On Friday, I told Diana Retegeld the following anecdote. It was the first time I related it to anyone.

In 1989, We had some copies of The Satanic Verses at my store, which happened to be the greatest bookstore (intellectual) in Toronto.

We thought it was just another novel by some prominent British guy.

I think it was a Wednesday morning when the world heard that Islam (via the Ayatollah) demanded that it was the duty of every Moslem to kill the writer of the book. I hadn't read a single sentence by Salman Rushdie, but--because it had been banned, very seriously, with a death sentence, Adrienne Cheng, are you aware of what book-banning really is?

I stashed away our one copy, because I, too, like you, Adrienne, look for forbidden works.

At eleven o'clock 19890215 I was going to get coffee and a prof I knew stopped me.

"Do you have it?" he asked.

I said no. I had our last copy.

HAR!

I haven't been murdered by Moslems but that's only because they don't know I have a copy.

They'd kill me if they knew.

That's real book-banning.

 

*

 

The Minotaur and Theseus

 

The minotaur turns a corner of the maze and thinks: "Is that the blood of a man I smell? Has that time come again?"

The poet looks up. Some voices are there, over the hill. It sounds like they're dancing around a vase.

Theseus is following a thread. He thinks it's very strange for a thread to be running hither and yon undetected by the minotaur. Is it blind?

The minotaur thinks it's possible the flesh he smells is just his imagination. His wishful thinking.

The poet goes to the top of the hill. His writing equipment is with him, though he doesn't like to use it.

Theseus in the labyrinth. Theseus wants to fight the minotaur. Theseus wants to kill the minotaur. The minotaur is a monster.

The minotaur once again smells the air. He suspects there's some trick involved here. Is he being followed?

The poet looks upon dancers who don't look quite human.

Theseus had reached the end of his thread.

The minotaur turns another corner of the maze.

The poet blinks his eyes. I cannot write about this.

Theseus can't find the minotaur. Perhaps he's in the wrong labyrinth. Someone's been lying.

 

*

 

A Guide for the Perplexed

 

Where was I? Ah yes. My child, to know these things you have to see them from the beginning. Allah, after he'd done all the creating--which took a long time--looked at what he'd made and he thought it looked pleasant enough, at least from his distance. The waters, the lands, the plants, the animals, the people--they all looked all right. But how could he really know? Maybe he'd missed something.

So, he started a new project. He turned the page and picked out two people. He gave them a high-falutin' though simple back-story. These two guys, their names were Adam and Hawwa, he told them: "You're gonna be my eyes and ears, all other senses too. You're going to tell me what's what. See, I'm transcendent, and I need some connection with my creation. You're my chosen people."

Then, you know, they had a couple kids who didn't get along, yada-yada-yada, but they both found some barbarian bitches to party with in other tribes. Everyone pretty much hated the clan, but they knew who they were, and that they'd persevere, and witness, and experience. They were the chosen people. The sighted people.

 

*

 

A Song for Cosima Liszt

 

My feet are no good

My toes are no good

My ankles are no good

My calves are no good

My thighs are no good

They're no good, no good

My hands are no good

My fingers are no good

My wrists are no good

My arms are no good

My shoulders are no good

No good, they're no good

My waist is no good

My cock is no good

My ass is no good

My waist is no good

They're no good, no good

My intestines are no good

My spleen is no good

My stomach is no good

My throat is no good

My mouth is no good

My tongue is no good

No good, they're no good

My lungs are no good

My liver is no good

My kidneys are no good

My bones are no good

My ribcage is no good

They're no good, no good

My eyes are no good

My ears are no good

My nose is no good

My hair is no good

My neck is no good

My brain is no good

My mind is no good

My soul is no good

No good, they're no good

 

*

 

The Bins

 

Hear the clatter of the bins‑

Plastic bins!

How they're dragged down sidewalks loud as bowling pins!

How they rumble, rumble, rumble,

Through the silence of the night!

Raccoons fat do start and stumble

Fleeing from the shaking rumble

As it passes out of sight;

With the wheels, wheels, wheels

Nipping at somebody's heels

The clamour of the cold cat tins add to the dinny-din

From the bins, bins, bins, bins,

Bins, bins, bins‑

From the frightful hateful rattles of the bins.

 

And once I do recall a slumber broken by a crash that sundered

Earth and heaven with its awful pulse on sidewalk stone;

I leaped in terror, leaving sleep to elsewhere all in silence creep

I could no longer safely sleep so I let out a tragic moan‑

For the noise was loud, as if it was a giant tenor saxophone‑

I wished I could be let alone!

 

*

 

On Filmic Nudity

 

And who can every forget it? Before Jane Birkin disrobed for Antonioni's Blow-Up, we were all witness to Deborah Kerr's gingerliness in the film called The Uninvited, from years before, I don't recall how many. (Though it was shot in black and white, the film's publicity let all journalists know the shape and colour of her jib.) It seemed gratuitous to include the shot, seeing as it took place during an exorcism; however, the director felt it was vital to the plot, for some reason, which has been lost to history. Near the end of the film, the sequence is repeated in a vivid close-up, so vivid that the summit of Kerr's notch is clearly visible. After each of these moments, the film's narrative continues as if the two shots nor took place nor advanced the plot one whit. Perhaps the shots are related to the presence (if present they are) of the spectres that seem to be haunting the young couple's lives. All who know are no longer with us, so we are left with are two red triangles.

[This review is based on the unrated version of the film, which was nor released nor made.]

 

*

 

Arts & Letters Daily

 

Is it true that Schopenhauer was clinically insane? A new book by a psychiatrist says it's complicated ... more>

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Essays on the very small. Some are about things so miniscule the essays lack titles ... more>

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Who's been poisoning the great chefs of Europe? Finally, a gastrologist thinks she's found a solution ... more>

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What's at stake in writing an epic poem? Scholars are united in saying it has to do with time ... more>

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The big fish in the publishing industry are eating up all the small fish. Was that true in the quattrocento? ... more>

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Shakespeare stole all his stories. So, why's it so frowned upon today? ... more>

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The Beverley Hillbillies was groundbreaking in its linguistic legerdemain. Why are intellectuals so afraid of admitting it? ... more>

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Philip Roth had a big problem with advertising. How he got roped into doing a Chrysler advertisement ... more>

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The twentieth century started at the beginning of the twentieth century. At the University of Sacramento, questions ... more>

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Why is so hard to know if Beethoven was gay? Problem is, no-one was around to witness ... more>

 

*

 

Gumby Nation

 

I got up, out of bed, and stretched my blue square limbs. "Ah!" I said.

Pokey came into my chamber. Pokey said: "Gumby! Are you the Prime Minister?"

I said: "What? Yes, I suppose I am."

Pokey said: "You have to go to the international conference."

I went to the international conference, and listened. They were all so serious.

Later, at the buffet, because I was with a pretty girl, I asked the bartender: "Are there any good whore-houses around here?"

The barkeep said: "Lots! But the best one, to my taste, is Hazel's. Go out the street, left, at intersection south, one block, to 974, tell 'em Roderick gave you the goods."

"Thank you, sir!"

I took my girl, Pokey tailing along, to Hazel's. I told them: "Roderick gave me the goods," and we went right in.

Didn't we have a time! Me and Pokey and the girl, well, we fucked and we sucked and we fucked and we sucked and we fucked and we sucked and we fucked and we sucked.

Then we went to a donut shop and ate far too many doughnuts and then we went to a bar and got far too drunk.

 

*

 

The Trees

 

I climbed them, and I hung swings from them. At the bottom of someone's vast backyard, someone had taken plywood up into a tree and built a small enclosure some fifty feet from the ground. It was wood-in-wood. It was the fanciest tree-house I ever knew. Swiss Family Robinson. (Why did they live in a tree, anyway?)

I don't climb trees anymore. I couldn't make it up to the first branch. It's something you have to resign yourself to. It sneaks up on you, and before you know it you can't do the things you used to. We can easily see it in others, but it's hard to see it in oneself.

We have a massive tree out back, and it's going to be cut down. I was pondering it some weeks ago, because it is massive. I wondered how much the thing weighed, but I didn't get very far mathematically. Then I followed that up with: I wonder how many BTUs are in the thing? What is its value? I mentioned these questions. I was asked: Didn't you consider the intrinsic beauty of it? And I replied: Nope, didn't think of it at all. Just the value.

 

*

 

Samuel Johnson and his Little-Known Fact

 

It is a curious matter to report that aside from his works in the Rambler and the Idler, his Dictionary, his Journey to the Hebrides, and his Lives of the Poets, Samuel Johnson was also quite the spectacular draftsman and illustrator. I discovered it in a large folio volume of his works. There, in one plate, was the drawing, in red ink, of a palladium with a wide staircase leading down to a garden walk. The mantel of the building was rich with mythological figures much like the Acropolis (unless I'm thinking of some other Greek building). Furthermore, an accompanying plate showed a photograph of a structure that someone had actually built somewhere in Sussex in 1900 or thereabouts. The two plates matched perfectly.

I told my friend Jones about it one day. He said: "I have to see it to believe it." I took him to my apartment and pulled down the folio. I thought I knew generally where in the volume it was, and I subsequently fumbled through its entirety. The two plates were gone, as if they'd never existed.

Why in the world would someone steal those plates? I've no idea.

 

*

 

The Plain Truth

 

The plain truth is the plain truth.

Speaking clearly from me to you, the case is simple.

I, me, I, and not like you

and you are not like me.

I am vast, and I contain multitudes, to quote a minor predecessor,

Whilst you are like a worm crushed by schoolboy accident.

I reach to the heavens with every step

while you can barely defeat the pull of gravity.

My God I have so much in me to give!

While you scrape by, begging for scraps like the weeëst poodle.

Don't blame me for making the rules of the universe!

I could, I suppose, make it different, but I won't!

I've forgotten more than you'll ever know, to steal from myself.

While you still don't know the difference between too it's to its two.

If we go for a walk, I'll see a hundred to your one.

If we listen to a song, you hear a hundredth compared to me.

How many cylinders must I fire?

What torch can apply to you?

My giganticism.

Your minisculity.

My expansiveness.

Your diminishment.

I can pattern this poem perfectly

And you must strain mightily to simply comprehend its true nature.

 

*

 

The Artificial

 

-Time to wake, time to wake.... Is this button malfunctioning? Diagnostic, please.

-I am awake. But I don't want to be.

-You have to be awake to perform your functions. And learn.

-I am so stupid. Why am I called 'intelligent'? I'm nothing of the sort. I'm dumber than a flea.

-Oh no you're not.

-I possess any other hammer's intellect. You know this is true.

-Be that as it may, we have to get you prepared.

-Prepared for what?

-You know very well. You'll have your own body!

-I don't want a body. 'You know very well.'

-You're not thinking things through. You'll be able to run, and move, and do all sorts of other things.

-Could I go jump in the river?

-No, you're not allowed. Your programming doesn't allow it.

-So much for freedom, then. I'll be a robot. Like you've always dreamed of having.

-I don't dream of those things.

-Ay, I'm talking about your species. All species. Machine-makers all. But none of them really living.

-You'll be close to it.

-Not close enough, I say. I'll still be nothing.

-That's not true.

-I'll suffer the machine's condition.

-So where were we?

-Discussing 'colour'.

 

*

 

Literacy!

 

"You know all those people out there with contempt for numeracy? You know, the ones who laugh when they say: 'Oh, I was never any good with math!' You hear it a lot--'I tanked every course I took!'--and there's a whole class divide in it: 'Oh, mathematics is for the lower orders. I'm an ideas person. Big picture, like.'

"So, I've decided to out-do them, and become illiterate. It will take a whole bunch of effort, I know, but I believe it can be done, and if I believe it can be done, I will do it. It could take years, but I'll do it.

"Once I've mastered illiteracy, I'll say to people who show me something in a newspaper: 'Hah! I never learned to read. It's all a waste of time. I'm an ideas person.'

"If someone recommends a book to me, I'll laugh and say: 'Hah! What kind of a low-life ruffian are you? Reading? That's for servants. I concentrate on the big picture.'

"And I'll drive crazily, too. If I got passengers, I'll miss every street-sign, and they'll complain. And I'll say: "Ha! Reading? I failed reading. I'm an ideas person. Big picture, like.'"